I don't know about that, i am very skeptical of this "F-35 is over-expensive crap" thing. A mainline fighter jet is an essential pillar of any modern armed forces and this is especially true for US/NATO whose main thing is to destroy defenseless nations with the least own casualties possible. They wouldn't joke around with one of the pillars of their military power.

This F-35 is inserted in this "5th Generation/Everything-Interconnected" thing, it was not designed to be a stealth F-16/F-15/whatever (like the F-22 was). 5th Generation is the "whole" not the "individual". Also remember that they plan to build more than 2000 and they are preparing all kinds of new weapons to equip it.

As the millions of Americans wander the streets looking for nonexistent jobs and the government claims there is no money available for anything useful, rest assured that the private military industrial parasites have managed to somehow siphon off $1.5 trillion of public money into a boondoggle that even falls short of a jet developed way back in 1974.

“There will be no gun until [the Joint Strike Fighter’s Block] 3F [software], there is no software to support it now or for the next four-ish years,” an Air Force official affiliated with the F-35 program told the Daily Beast. “Block 3F is slated for release in 2019, but who knows how much that will slip?”

And then there’s the problem with the guns: “Equipped with a gun, Air Force’s F-35A version barely carries enough ammunition. Despite being able to shoot 3,300 rounds per minute, it will only be carrying 180 to 220 rounds.”

You can imagine the crass rebuttal from the war hawks, as they puff on their imported Cohiba cigars, “Who cares. We got paid.”

More on this latest financial black hole…

A mock air battle between an F-16 jet and the military’s new and oft-troubled F-35 stealth jet showed that the F-35 is too sluggish to hit an enemy plane or dodge gunfire, according to a report.

The F-35 has cost the US military more than a trillion dollars since work on it began, making it the most expensive weapon in history.

The mock air battle, staged in January over the Pacific Ocean, was to test the F-35’s prowess as a close-range dogfighter at 10,000 to 30,000 feet. The F-35 pilot was to fly his jet hard, turning and maneuvering to “shoot down” the older F-16 jet, whose pilot would be doing his best to evade being hit, and trying to attack the F-35.

The test pilot’s five-page brief said that despite the F-16 being weighed down by two drop tanks, and with the F-35 jet carrying no weapons, the F-35 “remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement.”

The F-35 was designed to far exceed the fourth generation F-16 jets, first built in the 1970s, with the ability to carry its fuel and weapons internally. Yet aerodynamic problems, such as “insufficient pitch rate” for the jet’s nose while climbing, were reported during the mock battle.

The F-35 test pilot also discovered he couldn’t comfortably move his head inside the jet’s cramped cockpit.

“The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft,” said the report.

That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him.

The F-35 pilot tried to target the F-16 with the stealth jet’s 25-millimeter cannon, which the smaller F-16 easily dodged. The pilot said the F-35 performed so dismally that it had no place fighting other aircraft within visual range.

In one maneuver, the F-35 was able to perform decently at rudder reversal at slow speeds, but this used a lot of the aircraft’s energy, leaving the aircraft vulnerable to attack.

The brief release to the War is Boring website was unclassified but still marked “for official use only.” It documented a mock battle taking place on January 14, 2015 over a sea test range in the Pacific Ocean near Edwards Air Force Base, California…

The American F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft has its origins in a secret collaboration between Russia’s Yakovlev and Lockheed Martin of the United States.

The American F-35B – the naval version of the Joint Services Fighter – was not designed in Fort Worth, Texas, but in Moscow, Russia. The ‘unique’ lift fan and vectoring tailpipe that allows the F-35B stealth fighter to perform vertical takeoffs and landings (VTOL) was designed nearly three decades ago by Russia’s Yakovlev aircraft bureau for their supersonic multi-services fighter, the Yak-141.

Need for speed…and more

The Yak-141 was a successful development of the older Yak-38 jump jet. A good example of Russia’s poor record in naval aviation, the Yak-38 was an apology of a fighter, being outperformed in almost every department by its Western rivals such as the highly successful British Sea Harrier.

As part of the Soviet Navy’s massive expansion under Admiral Gorshkov, in 1975 Yakovlev was ordered to develop a highly versatile aircraft. Having an unprecedented blend of supersonic speed, vertical take-off and landing capability and extended range, its main role would be to defend the Soviet Naval Fleet and shipping lanes. The aircraft would not only operate from aircraft carriers, but also from wheeled landing and takeoff platforms that could be placed throughout the country, allowing the Russian Air Force to come into the picture.

Yakovlev’s designers dumped the double engine configuration that was popular those days, as in the Yak-38 and the Sea Harrier. Says Military Today: “Instead they created a layout with a single engine, that could turn 95 degrees down with two additional vertical thrust engines, located in the middle of the fuselage, just behind the center of gravity. These would turn on only during vertical take-off, vertical landing and hovering. The engineers had to stretch the body of the aircraft for aerodynamic stability.”

Plane truth: 12 world records and still grounded

In 1977 the aircraft got the green light for full development. By March 1987 came the first flight and the first hover was carried out on December 1989. During April 1991 test pilot Andrei Sintsyn set 12 world records for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that were recognised by the FAI. But trouble would soon bring down this highly promising fighter.

On October 5, 1991, a prototype aircraft crashed while attempting a carrier landing. Then came the funds crunch following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This meant that Yakovlev was now on its own – it had to get funds from somewhere.

Enter Lockheed

Trying to stay airborne in the turbulent skies of a collapsing empire, Yakovlev started looking for a foreign partner. One of the successes it notched up was the development of the Yak-130 trainer in partnership with Aermacchi of Italy.

The other partnership was with Lockheed Martin. In the early nineties, the United States military decided to replace its F-16, F-18 and A-10 fighter-bombers with a common family of aircraft for its three services that operated fixed wing aircraft.

Lockheed Martin was one of the companies trying to land the multi-trillion dollar Joint Strike Fighter contract. Since American designers had no prior experience in VTOL development and the British Jaguar was outdated, they saw the potential in Yakovlev’s design.

According to aviation analyst Bill Gunston, the Lockheed-Yakovlev partnership began in late 1991, though it was not publicly revealed by Yakovlev until September 6, 1992. Lockheed-Martin disclosed the deal only in June 1994.

Lockheed pumped in nearly $400 million. For Yakovlev the fruits of the partnership were three new prototypes and an additional static test aircraft to test improvements in design and avionics. Two prototypes of the planes were exhibited at the 1993 Moscow air show. None flew.

The real winner was Lockheed. Its designers had struck gold – they had learned enough about “lift plus lift cruise” techniques from the Russians to design their prototype Joint Strike Fighter, known as the X-35, in preparations for a fly off against the Boeing X-32.

The Russian advantage paid off handsomely. In a close fight to the finish line, the Yak-inspired X-35 got the contract.

Spotting similarities

The similarities between the F-35B and the Yak-141 are not just in the engines, nozzles and fans. The two aircraft even look alike in terms of appearance – like twins separated at birth. This is hardly a coincidence because under the hood of the American plane is a Russian heart.

There is another clue about the shared DNA of the two planes. Strategy Page reports that over the last five years, testing of the “B” version of the new American F-35 fighter showed that its engine generated enough heat to damage carrier decks. The Yak-141 had an eerily similar problem – it was also known to damage runways and decks it operated from.

Military Today says Lockheed-Martin “possibly used experience gained from this project developing their own F-35 multi-role fighter”.

The real truth may come years later when or if someone from the Russian or American side sits down to pen down their memoirs. Until then, all we can say is if it looks like a Yak, flies like a Yak and acts like a Yak, it must be a Yak.